[Text Editors] Comparison

[Van Adium]

For longer docs, I use the free version of Atlantis Nova. Cool little rich
text word processor with spell check and many features. Even reads Win Word
DOC's! 460K, 1 executable. Saves RTF and plain TXT.

The free version has spell check, are you sure? The last time I looked
at it spell check was a feature of the $ware version only.

Van Adium

 

[REMbranded]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

That's about the best I could do in making the display user friendly.
Suggestions are very welcomed!

Or, grab the files if you'd like to play with them:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.csv

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.xls

An interesting archive I stumbled across:

"Text, ASCII, HTML, DBF editors and viewers, print utils, font
managers" 1280 programs. Ware status?

http://sac-ftp.externet.hu/utiltext1.html

 

[Wim]

That's about the best I could do in making the display user friendly.
Suggestions are very welcomed!

It looks very good!

You might want to split it up in 3 sections:
- notepad replacements
- programmers editors with syntax highlighting
- wordpad replacements with RTF

Some other good text editors you might want to check out:
Scite: www.scintilla.org
TED notepad: http://jsimlo.sk/

 

[Sammy Mitchell]

Hey, you must be getting as old as dirt. I certainly am.

I think I resemble that remark.
<grin>

I'm pushing 48. I think when I get to 49, I'll just stay there.

It is interesting though. We have users who have been with us
for 18 years now. Actually, (it just hit me) we have users that
are younger than our company!

Ok, I am getting old!

 

[Bob Adkins]

The free version has spell check, are you sure? The last time I looked
at it spell check was a feature of the $ware version only.

You are correct. Sorry about that. I don't use Atlantis often, so I got it
mixed up.

Bob

 

[Bob Adkins]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

Nice going REM!

I want to mention that MetaPad will launch e-mail links. Of course, they
must be correctly formatted: mailto:[email protected]

Exiting MetaPad by pressing the ESC key is PRICELESS. This is one feature
that made me choose it as a text viewer. This and 2 other things are missing
from NotePad replacements; Shift+right arrow to open the next TXT file in
the folder, left to open previous, and a hot key to strip high ASCII
characters like this:

° ° ° ° °
° ± ÜÜÜÜÜ ± ±
° ± ° ² Üß ÜÜÜ ßÜ ° ÜÜÜÜÜÜܲÜÜÜÜÜ °
ÜܲÜÜÜ
± ÜܲßßÜ °ÜÜÜßßßßÜßßßßßÜ Û ÜÛ²ÛÛÛÜ ÛÜ°ÜÜÜß ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ßÜßßß
ÜÜÜÜÞ
ÜÜÜܲÜÜÜßßß ÜÜÛ ÛÜßßßß ÜÜÜßÛÜÜÜÛÛß ßßß ßÛÛßßßÜÜÜ ß ÜÜÜÛ²ÛÛÛ Û²ÛÛÝ
ÜÜÛßÛÛÛÛÝÞ
ÜÜÜ ß ÜÜÜÛÛÛ²ÛÝ ÜÜÛÛßßÛÛÛÛ ÛÛ²ÛÝ °° ° ÜÜÜ ÛÛÛÛßß ÛÛ²ÛÝ° ÞßßßßßÜ ° ÛÛ²Û
Þ
ÝÛ²ÛÛßß ÛÛÛÛÛ ßÛÛÛÛ ° ÛÛÛÛÜßÛÛÝ ° °° ß²ÛÛÛÝÞ²ÛÛ ° Û²²Û ÜÜÜ ÛÛÛÝ ÛÛÛÝ
Û
Ý ßßß ° Û²ÛÛÝ ßßß ßßß ßßß °° ßßßßß ßß ÜÜܲ±ß ßßßßßßß ßßß °
Üß
ÛÞ°°°°ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜܱ° °° °°°°° ° °°°± °°Ý°°°° ÜÜÜÜ ° °°°°° °°ßßß
ßßÜ
Þݱ±°± ° Û±±±Û ܲ²Ý ° ±°±±±Þ±±Ý Þ²²²Ý²²² ²²±² Þ±°±±±Ý ° ±±±±± ±
ß±±±±ßÞ



Bob

 

[REMbranded]

I want to mention that MetaPad will launch e-mail links. Of course, they
must be correctly formatted: mailto:[email protected]

I'll fix that. There might be several mistakes, so point 'em out if
you see 'em!

Exiting MetaPad by pressing the ESC key is PRICELESS. This is one feature
that made me choose it as a text viewer. This and 2 other things are missing
from NotePad replacements; Shift+right arrow to open the next TXT file in
the folder, left to open previous, and a hot key to strip high ASCII
characters like this:

I don't recall seeing any with these features. That's what's so cool
about this. It seems each author saw a nook no one else had filled and
added such. The features that I listed are just a few of the more
common ones shared by these editors. Many, many were not listed.

 

[Bob Adkins]

I don't recall seeing any with these features. That's what's so cool
about this. It seems each author saw a nook no one else had filled and
added such. The features that I listed are just a few of the more
common ones shared by these editors. Many, many were not listed.

Oh oh! I said that wrong. MetaPad has the quick exit (ESC) feature, but not
the file toggling or junk filtering feature. If you find an editor with all
3 features, just let me know!

Bob

 

[Susan Bugher]

Yes, that page is sorted by registry entries. I was going to do an
alphabetical one also and link the first from it.

Why not do an alphabetical page with *all* the editors - and question
marks for the data you don't have. I think the group could furnish a lot
of the information - especially the feature info.

Susan

 

[Lars Erik Bryld]

Scripsit (e-mail address removed):

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

That's about the best I could do in making the display user friendly.
Suggestions are very welcomed!

If your web host offers any kind of server-side scripting, a very nice
feature would be a form where you could search or sort on features of
particular interest, like size (notepad replacements), ability to open huge
files with or without syntax highlightning (programmer's editors), or HTML
validation etc.

I occasionally do stuff like that in PHP and would gladly assist, others
might be able to do it in ASP or CGI/Pearl.

 

[REMbranded]

Susan Bugher <[email protected]> wrote:

Why not do an alphabetical page with *all* the editors - and question
marks for the data you don't have. I think the group could furnish a lot
of the information - especially the feature info.

Sounds like a plan. That was most of the text editors. The
programming, hex and a few word processing programs aren't listed.
I'll try to get it together tonight.

 

[REMbranded]

If your web host offers any kind of server-side scripting, a very nice
feature would be a form where you could search or sort on features of
particular interest, like size (notepad replacements), ability to open huge
files with or without syntax highlightning (programmer's editors), or HTML
validation etc.

I thought of that, but I have no experience with scripting. That would
be very nice to allow the user to set preferences and have a sorted
list presented.

I occasionally do stuff like that in PHP and would gladly assist, others
might be able to do it in ASP or CGI/Pearl.

Sure! Can you do it in PHP?

 

[mike555]

----- snip ----

Very nice, you might want to include "RoughDraft" , from
http://www.rsalsbury.co.uk/rd.htm ............

 

[Lars Erik Bryld]

Scripsit (e-mail address removed):

I thought of that, but I have no experience with scripting. That would
be very nice to allow the user to set preferences and have a sorted
list presented.


Sure! Can you do it in PHP?

If your web host supports the option, yes.

It would be easiest, if the host also supports a MySql server, but the
data can be drawn from the csv file as well.

You can upload a file called e.g. test.php with the following content:

<?
phpinfo();
?>

If you load this page from your site, you should see a long-winded table
showing your PHP-configuration.

If you simply see the above text, then you don't have PHP.

Get back here if you're sure you have PHP, and I'll send a suggestion for
you to try out.

 

[Max Quordlepleen]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:
http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

What, no (X)Emacs? <wounded sniff>
;D

 

[John Fitzsimons]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

< snip >

Nice. You might consider adding info that tells which do regex,
inbuilt grepping, etc.

I would put them either in alphabetical order or via size of largest
file editable eg. <50MB, >50Mb etc.

Regards, John.

P.S. It's Shalo*m* txt.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[BillR]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

That's about the best I could do in making the display user friendly.
Suggestions are very welcomed!

Very impressive start. So far this is quite readable, but as features
are added ....

Are you going to have additional comments specific to each editor?

I think it is important to distinguish between Yes, No,
Partial/Exception/Comment, Don't Know, and Not Applicable. As others
have suggested, perhaps these could be Y/-/*/space or ?/NA Where
numbers are concerned, either zero or dash as most appropriate (e.g.,
dash is easier to scan).

Repeating the heading row is a good idea, but perhaps less frequently.
I suspect that some column headings will grow taller.

Speaking of which, some columns could easily be compressed if the
heading were narrower.

Columns should be grouped as much as possible. For example, putting
Spell Check and Thesaurus next to each other is a good idea. I
associateFile Wipe and Encryption and Password.

I have added a few more features (not very well organized) to consider
below. You may have to explain what a few of your features mean.

If you don't intend to go into depth in some areas (e.g., support for
code), perhaps a qualitative rating would be appropriate.

Despite my criticisms, let me repeat: this is a great start.

Thanks,
BillR

-----
Password

Does "multiple files" mean just open
Open same file in multiple windows Coordinated update (Split file
view?)
Search / replace in multiple files

Regular expressions in search
Complex searches (e.g., special characters, near)

Drag&drop edit
Windows standard select/highlight/etc.(e.g., sh + --> and ctl + sh +
-->)
Rectangular selection

Automatic back-up with versions
Versioning and file comparison (diff)

Language support (English/other/multicharacter/user extensible)

How extensive is help
Language/code specific help
Context dependent help With >1 file open

Line numbers/increment control/placement/add-remove-display-hide
Auto indent paragraph/list/code
Auto number/bullet
Outlines (also see code folding)
Bookmarks
Tables
Link highlighting/launch

Which coding languages supported
Autocomplete syntax/language/code
Autocomplete specific to file/language/code versus global

Format templates (styles)
Show format codes

Code templates
Syntax check/match braces
Tidy format feature or integration
Code folding

User support (forum/ng/... and activity and location)
Actively updated/status
License

Open source
Project mngmt
Print preview
Plugins
Autoreplace notepad/wordpad option in setup
FTP

 

[BillR]

Well, here is the first draft of the features and limitations of the
first 20 or so text editors:

http://www.woundedmoon.org/text/texteditor.html

That's about the best I could do in making the display user friendly.
Suggestions are very welcomed!

<Snip>

Would you also post (here or on site) a simple list of the editors on
your review list? Rejected? I hope people will look at that list
before making additional suggestions.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Simon]

Go Branded!!

interesting to see a few more people appear to be taking an interest now
that something has been produced....

In order to save some real estate by narrowing the columns, is it possible
to 'rotate' the column headings (eg in Excel you can rotate the text up to
90 degrees from the horizontal). I had a hunt through my meagre HTML
recsources and couldn't find anything but perhaps someone more knowledgable
can confirm if this is doable.

also, instead of adding an extra column at the right of your table for the
link, just make the first column serve both purposes (ie make the link
title the prog name)

again, great job (keep going!!!)

S

 

[Blinky the Shark]

- wordpad replacements with RTF

Hey, that gives me an idea for a whole category of software (free or
otherwise) that's been sorely neglected and could be the next Killer
App: clueware with WTF.